Relish the culinary fusion of Indian and Oriental cuisines

CHENNAI: The moment we enter Madras Kitchen Company (MKC) in Westin Chennai, Velachery, the soulful violin melody of Kanmani Anbodu Kadhalan welcomes us. The live music elevates the ambience as well as our mood, giving out a first good impression.

Their newly launched menu goes by a newspaper template that has snippets about the common features between India and the Orient culture, interesting food facts and research, and Chennaiites emotion, filter kaapi. Explaining to DT Next about the new menu, executive chef Saravanan says, “ Apart from its regular south Indian cuisine, Chennai has a strong base of Marwari, Punjabi, Maharastrian, and south-east Asian cuisines. Now, the Japanese and Korean are also expanding. In our new menu, we tried to bring everything on the plate. We have siruthaniya sundal, Sri Lankan crab, Yazhpanam chicken curry, pol sambol, Pondicherry style thirukkai meen kuzhambu, Malaysian bee hoon and hokkien mee to name a few.”

Though filter kaapi always remains special to Chennai, the coffee culture is still evolving here. “We tried our hand in that as well and have come up with innovative coffee options,” he adds. Talking about the food trends, the chef shares, “Healthy eating is the talk of the town. Moreover, ethnic cuisines and American cuisines like Louisiana will be introduced in town. There will be an increase in the number of pastry outlets and Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) outlets.”

We now move to the small plates, we started with the farsan platter, which had fluffy dhokla, khandvi, bhakarwadi, khakra, kothimbir vadi, mint chutney and fried chilli. In the non-veg category, we tried the scrumptious manathakkali mutton varuval and coin parotta. Among the hawkers bowl, the char kway teuy, which is flat rice noodles tossed with chilli and bean sprouts is a must-try with a balance of sweet and spicy flavours. Bringing the north to south, the Rajasthani aloo mangodi, ker sangri, thepla and lehsun ki chutney was delicious. The lehsun ki chutney is especially apt for spicy lovers.

For dessert aficionados, there are a variety of innovative options to taste. The kesar ghewar with roasted almond ice cream served with strawberries is appetising and flavoursome. For chocoholics, the three things from 66% valrhona chocolate are luscious. The presentation was also palatable. However, the lava portion was missing in the choco lava cake.